Category: Historical Fiction
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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
I had no plans to read this book. I usually stay away from the overly hyped books of the year, not so much because I think they’ll be a fraud, but because it’s so hard to get my hands on a copy and they usually don’t seem worth giving up a precious spot on my holds…
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The Most Perfect Book
I’ve always heard that if you have ambitions to write you should write the novel that you would want to read, the novel that embraces all your passions and literary likes. Well, thanks to Carlene Bauer there’s no need for me to ever write my own novel – she has written my perfect book. Frances &…
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The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
After reading Revolutionary Road last summer I felt great interest in reading more of Richard Yates’ startling novels. However, as these things go, it has taken me almost a year to read The Easter Parade, my second of his books. Just like Revolutionary Road, The Easter Parade sucks you into the hyper-realistic world of a dysfunctional…
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Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
This is the first book I read in what I consider ‘summer mode’. Do you find your reading tastes/expectations change when summer comes around? I do. I want to read mysteries, YA, contemporary more than classics and the ‘buzz’ books of the season. I think it’s all so fun. Elizabeth is Missing is definitely a…
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Fin & Lady by Cathleen Schine
“Fin’s funeral suit was a year old, worn three times, already too small”. I knew I wanted to read this book when I saw that it takes place in the mid-sixties, one of my favorite time periods. I love the music, the fashion, the films and the changing social and cultural norms. Fin & Lady…
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Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
“It was the last night of 1937.” Rules of Civility was the third book that we read for my new book group. It had a bit of a mixed review from the book group members with the majority of us liking it, and other members being a bit put off by some of the plot…
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Beautiful Lies by Clare Clark
There are few things better than a good neo-Victorian novel, so I was really looking forward to this book set in London in the 1880’s. I’d never read Clare Clark before, but I’d heard from patrons at the library that her novels are full of rich historical details. Beautiful Lies definitely had that, but I…
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The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate
The Shooting Party takes place in 1913, over three days in October, at a shooting party at Nettleby Park, the home of Sir Randolph Nettleby and his wife Minnie. At first glance it seems like nothing much happens in this novel, but it is one of those books that, despite a slight plot, reveals heaps…
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The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton by E. Speller
I’ve always had a strange fascination with people who’ve disappeared and have never been seen again. The tv show Disappeared is one I never miss because I just don’t understand how someone can vanish into thin air. The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton deals with just such a case. Set in the 1920’s the book…
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The Solitary House by Lynn Shepherd
The Solitary House (called Tom-All-Alone’s in the UK) is a dark Victorian mystery that uses characters and plot points from two grand Victorian mysteries – The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and Bleak House by Charles Dickens – to create its own riveting tale. Charles Maddox is a young private investigator, an outspoken man…
A Certain Fondness 